Though we know it’s important to excercise to lose weight, most of us dislike working out. Add to that the fact that the seemingly endless hours involved are stolen from things we’d rather be doing – and it quickly becomes a chore that we want to get through as quickly as possible.
So far, so good. We all feel that way at times. (Btw- working out becomes more enjoyable with time.) So in our rush to “get it over with” we are tempted to skip or at least gloss over our warm up routine.
Warning – don’t do it! Skipping your warm-up is a disaster just waiting to happen! It puts your body at serious risk for injury. But, you knew that. “It can’t happen to me” or “I’ll skip it just this once” are rationalizations that we all have no trouble with using.
Even when we know it is bad for us, or even dangerous, evidence of this sort of rationalization is everywhere. Every pack of cigarettes has had a printed cancer warning for more than thirty years – but there are still tens of millions of smokers! Lung cancer is one of the most prevalent forms of cancer. Just look at the illicit drug industry. It’s one of if not THE biggest industry in the world, yet we all know that drug abuse will eventually kill us. Not to mention that it is addictive, illegal, expensive and so on…
When you excercise to lose weight, the thought that you can skip the warm-up “just this once” WILL occur to you. Resist. Allow just a couple extra minutes to warm up and a couple to cool down, it is very worthwhile.
Great news! Properly warming-up makes the rest of your session more effective and a little easier as well. So you don’t really save anything by skipping it. When you excercise to lose weight, you’ll get more benefit from each session, it’ll be easier and you’ll avoid injury by making it a rule to never skip the warm-up.
The best part is that your warm up doesn’t have to be a long laborious process. Five minutes will suffice. Plus, there are quite a few moves that will work and by mixing and matching you can avoid falling into a boring rut.
All excercise to lose weight routines – weights or aerobics – need a complete warm up, even if you don’t plan to work on a certain set of muscles that day. For example, if you will be lifting weights to work on your upper body, warm up your legs too! It’s important.
Your warm up doesn’t have to be hard. The main goal is just to get your muscles moving. Stretch them out, get the blood flowing. Jogging in place, skipping rope, jumping Jacks, lunges are all effective options.
Many people think of stretching as more of a cooling down move, but there are a lot of good reasons to include stretches as part of your warm up routine. Why not, it can’t hurt to do a little extra stretching. Who knows maybe it CAN hurt – literally – not to.
If you really object to spending the time, why not try warming up before you even get to the gym? Park several blocks away from the gym and power walk the rest of the way. When given a choice, take the stairs instead of an elevator. That way, once you are ready to get going, you are well on your way to being warmed up.
I once went to a gym and saw more than 15 people waiting for an elevator to go up ONE floor! And the stairs (about 20 steps) were right next to the elevator! It boggles the mind. After all, they were ALL there to get a workout. Heck, half of them got off the elevator and went right over to the Stairmaster.
It doesn’t matter if you want to lose a few pounds, or lose quite a few pounds any excercise to lose weight routine will start out easy and build in intensity. This can be risky if you skip the warm up. To be safe and maintain good levels of health, take the few extra minutes.